Add Driver To Esxi 6
I’ve been doing recently VMware ESXi deployment in my lab environment and would like to share main steps required to make it work on nested Hyper-V. Needless to say, nested virtualization works great only for demo and labs, therefore, running ESXi under Hyper-V is a completely unsupported in production environments.Anyway, carry out the following steps to install ESXi (6.0, in my case. Although these steps should work for newer versions as well):1.
Download VMWare ESXi offline bundle available at product download page (e.g. You can also download a ESXi image customized by vendor. For example, here is a direct download link for which includes Dell’s VIBs in addition to built-in installation bundles provided by VMware.2. Which allows running ESXi as a VM under Microsoft Hyper-V ( net-tulip, it’s actually a network driver which should be added to ESXi image.
Jun 05, 2017 Add custom drivers to standard ESXi 6.5d ISO. You can use the vSphere ESXi Image Builder to create an ESXi ISO with custom drivers added. See for more information about vSphere ESXi.
Otherwise, ESXi installation will be blocked)3. Copy the downloaded files to the same folder (e.g. ‘D:ImagesVMware ESXi 6’). It’ll be used as a work folder.4. Download and install5. Once PowerCLI is installed, run it and set location to the folder containing the files, then add offline depot ZIP files to the current PowerCLI session as shown below.
Esxi Driver Download
#Create a new image profileNew-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile ESXi-6.0.0-2494585 -Name rlevchenko.com -Vendor custom#Add custom packagesAdd-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile rlevchenko.com -SoftwarePackage net-tulip -ForceIf AcceptanceLevel is set to PartnerSupported by default (as in the picture above) and custom packages which you are going to add to the image profile have Community acceptance level, you will receive an error during creating an ESXi ISO and it’s installation. To resolve this, set the acceptance level of the image profile to CommunitySupported by running the following command: Set-EsxImageProfile -AcceptanceLevel CommunitySupported –ImageProfile rlevchenko.com8. Now it’s time to create an ISO from the customized ESXi image.To do this, run the following command. #Option 1Set-VMProcessor -VMName 'vHost-01' -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $True#Option2.Enable-NestedVM.ps1 -vmName 'vHost-01'10. Turn on the VM, attach the created ESXi ISO and press TAB on the boot screen, then type ignoreHeadless=TRUE and press Enter.
Otherwise, ESXi boot will hang while booting (I assume it’s all because ESXi is running on non-HCL hardware. VM is a bit out of the HCL list.).11. Complete ESXi installation process (as usual), reboot it and press SHIFT+O during the startup, and then enable ignoreHeadless option again as shown in the screenshot:Once ESXi is successfully started, define settings for management network, enable a Shell, and then press Alt+F1 to enter to a console. We need to set a VMKernel boot-time parameter. Otherwise, you will always need to enable ignoreHeadless after every reboot.Provide root credentials and type esxcfg-advcfg -k TRUE ignoreHeadlessClose the console by pressing ALT+F2, reboot ESXi and verify that it starts up seamlessly.That’s it. Now you have a ESXi host running on a Hyper-V VM.Until then,enjoy your day:)!
Hi @rlevchenko, thanks for the blog!I’ve seen and followed several websites with the same process and I downloaded the same sources and compiled the ISO using identical steps, but obviously it fails at my endMy system runs HyperV in Windows 2016 (LTS 1607) server and the VM is configured for ExposeVirtualizationExtensions and the legacy network adapter. The ignoreHeadless=TRUE switch is used to start the installer, but still it cannot load nfs41 during the setup loader and the system fails with the ‘no network adapter found’ error.
I tried ESXi 6.0 as well as 6.5 and did the build with both the ESXi-Customizer-PS-v2.6.0.ps1 script as well as the ‘manual’ steps in the PowerCLI. All same result.
Any idea where this could go wrong?Thanks for any suggestion. Hi @rlevchenko,thanks for the writeup.
I’m following the steps 1:1 from this site as well as some others that did the same. Still on my laptop (Windows 2016 LTS 1607) with HyperV (running several other VMs incl some that use the legacy adapter), I cannot successfully install ESXi. The ISO is created and the tulip package has been added. Mercedes w123 manual download.
The VM boots with the ignoreHeadless=TRUE switch, but during the phase that the modules are loading the message that nfs41`driver cannot be loaded shows. Later it fails with the no network adapters found message. I tried 6.5.0, and 6.0.0. Both fail the same way.When I prep an ESXi ISO with 5.5.0 the identical way (using the PowerCLI or ESXi-Customizer-PS-v2.6.0.ps1 script) that 5.5.0 ESXi installs fine.
So obviously something to do with the net-tulip-1.1.15-1-offlinebundle not being fully compatible with the 6.0 and 6.5 but according to your blog and other that same config at least installs.Any idea(s)?thanks!
Upgrade Esxi 6 To 6.7
Note: This is not an official guide, Backup data is required before you apply the driver. My PC has two NICs:. Intel I217-LM. Realtek RTl-8139 and #2 Realtek 8139 is not supported. There are some about customize EXSi installation ISO to support the NIC, I’m trying to find a way apply the driver without reinstall EXSi.
Add Driver To Esxi 6 Iso
Here is a page: which contains many NIC drivers. I downloaded the for Realteck 8139 Follow the instruction: to upload offline bundle to EXSi host and change EXSi host to maintance mode SSH to EXSi and apply the driver by command: esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs /volumes/ storage name/net-r8139too-0.9.28-1-offlinebund le.zip –no-sig-check It prompts me: VIB Realtekbootbanknet-r8139too0.9.28-1’s acceptance level is community, which is not compliant with the ImageProfile acceptance level partner To change the host acceptance level, use the ‘esxcli software acceptance set’ command. Change the Host Acceptance Level Follow the instruction to update host acceptance level: Command: esxcli software acceptance set –level=CommunitySupported Apply the driver again: esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/ storage name/net-r8139too-0.9.28-1-offlinebundle.zip –no-sig-check Installation Result Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective. Reboot Required: true VIBs Installed: Realtekbootbanknet-r8139too0.9.28-1 VIBs Removed: VIBs Skipped: Reboot EXSi host and Exit maintenance mode The NIC can be recognized by VMware now.